Friday, September 25, 2009

Come on. What were they fighting over? He's not in Leavenworth. It's a Camp , for crying out loud. The dude is 59. And formerly worth billions. Now he's brawling in prison? Ok, that's cool. And sure to get chicks. If he ever gets out.

I suppose he needs a creative outlet, to pass the time.

Anyhoo, as a result of proving his manhood, or getting shanked, as the case may be, they may revoke his membership here.

Friday, September 11, 2009

So as reported by Jay Weaver, when Tom Raffanello, a highly decorated, high ranking career federal law enforcement agent puts his training, skills and ethics to work for Allen Stanford and flaunts a court order to preserve all documents, instead ordering his lieutenants to shred thousands and thousands of pages of documents at the same time the government is raiding and shutting down his boss' enterprise, who does that Bad Boy hire to defend him when he is indicted?

Kendall, of course. Because Kendall knows how to make headlines and work the press. Obviously.

``They were just cleaning out the offices to close down their company,'' said Coffey.

Kendall called the indictment "a serious mistake."

Kendall knows about mistakes. Obviously.

N.B. Hey Tom, when is the last time Kendall Coffey tried a case, and did not plead his client guilty?

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

You remember Marky-Mark, right? No? Foley is the former real estate agent turned Republican senator from sunny Florida who was a huge opponent of child pornography. Huge.

He introduced a bill, coined the "Child Modeling Exploitation Prevention Act of 2002" to outlaw web sites featuring sexually suggestive images of preteen children, saying that “these websites are nothing more than a fix for pedophiles.” (Folks, the guy is not a hypocrite - read carefully: he stands firm on banning images of PRE teen children.)

Turns out Mark had a little secret. He liked 'em young and vulnerable.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Charlie and George are turning heads in DC. Turns out there is some scrutiny regarding George and his firm Gunster Yoakley and its work for the Governor and the State. I guess once you break on the national scene, all those skeletons come out of the closet.

As reported by the Miami Herald:

"For the past 15 years, West Palm Beach-based Gunster Yoakley has represented U.S. Sugar Corp., which for months negotiated with Crist's office to sell much of its land to the state and federal government to clean up polluted runoff in the Everglades. LeMieux said he avoided any involvement in the U.S. Sugar deal while working for Crist or afterward. The state's chief negotiator was Eric Eikenberg, a LeMieux protege who succeeded him as chief of staff.

Two weeks before LeMieux left Crist's office, Gunster Yoakley landed a $500,000 contract representing the state Department of Transportation on two matters. DOT general counsel Alexis Yarbrough, who signed the contract on Dec. 20, 2007, is the wife of Shane Strum, a deputy chief of staff who reported to LeMieux when he worked for Crist. LeMieux said he played no role in his firm's hiring; DOT has said the firm has special expertise in arcane railroad law. The firm did work for DOT before LeMieux returned there.

After leaving Crist's office in December 2007, LeMieux earned about $150,000 over a 13-month period as an adviser to state Republican Party chairman Jim Greer, a lucrative sideline that has led some to label LeMieux a ``political consultant.'' He will not discuss what he did to earn that money, which was paid from the party's federal account to his firm, MTC Strategies (named after his sons Max, Taylor, and Chase)."

In a nutshell, the country lawyers from Miami represented a landowner coming up on the end of a 10 year lease to Southern Command.

(Come on people, Southern Command: responsible for U.S. military operations in the Western Hemisphere? For you conspiracy theorists, they do things like supply guns to counter insurgents, or regular insurgents, or the government in power that creates the desire or need for insurgents. They may be the unassuming neighbor who leads a quiet and solitary life, but who travels a lot and asks you to walk their dogs while they are gone. To those of us who are not conspiracy theorists and have faith in the wisdom of our government and its leaders and accept what they tell us at face value, Southern Command is tasked with Building A Brighter Future. (They probably just noted that I linked to the SOUTHCOMM site and are going to monitor my IPO and the IPO of those of you reading this.)

Anyhoo, it seems like the kind of adversary you don't necessarily want to piss off. So much for that.

Two days before expiration of the 10 years lease, when negotiations to extend the lease did not result in terms favorable to SOUTHCOMM, SOUTHCOMM and its lawyers did what any fair minded party would do in good faith: they filed an action to condemn the property for Military use. Nice.

David O. Vollenweider III, part of the crack legal team at the Justice Department's Land Acquisition Division in Washington, argued no deal had been reached. No signed contract, no meeting of the minds, no deal. You'd think David O.'s position would resonate with Judge K. Michael Moore, right?

Nope.

Dotson and Lodish argued that even though the deal had not closed, negotiations were well-documented and the condemnation action was in bad faith and a violation of well-established contract law. “They wanted to remain, and we believe we had negotiated such an extension,” Dotson said.

GPA’s legal team showed the negotiated price had been approved by government officials.

“We were able to go up the chain,” Dotson said.

David, you just run along now back to Washington and explain to your bosses up the chain at the Department of Justice how you cost Southern Command 22.8 million.

N.B. I'm not really a facial hair kind of guy, but Alvin and this win have me rethinking my position. Heck, there are apparently a bunch of reasons to sport the growth, in addition to making you a bad ass.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Founded by a short angry man who was named after a short angry man and who wanted to send all the coloreds back to Africa, like most cities that have survived after slavery was abolished, Broward has come a long way, right?

Let's take a look-see. There is that statue of the short angry man who embraced the notion of the superiority of white people, smack dab in the middle of the Broward courthouse. And the Honorable Lawrence Korda and his disdain for folks who do not speak English without an accent. And gosh, the Chief hates when the black folk play that rap music on their boom boxes. God Bless the Broward legal system.

But you knew all this. Its why I hear you say that you regard cases in Broward like The Plague.

What you maybe didn't know, is the prevalence of The Broward Way in other walks of life, like the education of children in Broward. The Sun Sentinel reports that "A Broward School District form for parents to sign and return asked for their children's racial background." Is your child a Negro?

You white men living in Broward might want to keep a close watch on your women.

NB: If one more Broward lawyer volunteers during litigation "I DON'T KNOW HOW YA'LL DO IT DOWN THERE IN MIAMI BUT HERE IN BROWARD...." I am going to start carrying a big pouch of Red Man chewing tobaccy everytime I venture into that pocket of the deep south, and offer it to the lawyer as my response to the above statement.